22 notes

I don’t know if we need any more superhero movies, really – I myself have only seen a handful of them. People like them and they make a lot of money for the studios, so I don’t see them fading away anytime soon. A lot of them seem formulaic to me, as is the case with a lot of the superhero comics. Often, nothing of any great literary or human – or even artistic – interest happens in these films, they’re all spectacle and flash. Which is fine, just not my vintage. No iconic character such as Spider-Man can be killed or in any way significantly changed – in effect changing or ending the brand – and so you get recyclable stories of good guys fighting bad guys or the latest alien invasion or the Nazis. I think the reason some superhero films work is because they’re actually science fiction films and can deal with larger ideas, such as time travel or dystopianism. I can’t stand the Nolan Dark Knight films, they’re ruthlessly drab and dour, lacking any light or sex appeal or self-awareness. However, I really love the Iron Man films. Stark is portrayed as a hero/scientist – when was the last time you saw a character in a film dramatically design and build a supercollider as an essential plot point? I thought that was cool. Hugh Jackman in the first twenty minutes of X-Men 1 is super cool, ’ cos he’s such a sexy and mysterious badass. I am looking forward to Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel, which looks like it has some potential to be more than just another re-hash of a character who should belong to the public domain, just like Mickey Mouse. As for myself, I’m more into auteurs of film, such as Truffault and Murnau and Tarkovsky and Jodorowsky. Same goes for comics – I look at them for the artwork. I admire cartoonists who write and draw their own works, such as Roy Crane, Moebius, Jeff Smith, Los Bros, and Blutch.